here for better than three years. We hacked a home out of the wilderness and made it nice. We fought the hard winters, Indians a few times, and we know the folks in this area. You people, on the other hand, just come in here. You don’t know nobody, yet you’re going to call me a liar. See what I mean, Shopkeeper?
“Now the wrong of it is this: there are bullies who take advantage of the code, so to speak. Those types of trash will prod a fellow into a fight, just because they think that to fight is manly, or some such crap as that. Excuse my language, ladies. But the point is, you got to watch your mouth out here. The graveyards are full of people ignorant of the ways of the West.”
Ed Jackson blustered and sweated, but he did not offer to apologize.
He won’t make it, Smoke thought. Someone will either run him out or kill him. And mankind will have lost nothing by his passing.
“Why is Franklin doing these things, Mister Jensen?” Haywood asked.
“Smoke. Call me Smoke. Why? Because he wants to be king. Perhaps he’s a bit mad. I don’t know. I do know he hates farmers and small ranchers. As for me, well, I have the Sugarloaf and he wants its.”
“The Sugarloaf?” Hunt asked.
“My valley. Part of it, that is.”
“Are you suggesting the election is rigged?” Haywood inquired.
“No. I’m just saying that Tilden’s people will win, that’s all.”
“Has Mister Franklin offered to buy any of the farmers’ or ranchers’ holdings?” Hunt asked.
Smoke laughed. “Buy? Lawyer, men like Tilden don’t offer to buy. They just run people out. Did cruel kings offer to buy lands they desired? No, they just took it, by force.”
Preacher Morrow had ceased his work with the axe and had joined the group. His eyes searched for his wife and, not finding her present, glowered at Ed Jackson.
Maybe I was right, Smoke thought.
“Are you a Christian, Mister Jensen?” he asked, finally taking his eyes from the shopkeeper.
Bad blood between those two, Smoke thought. “I been to church a few times over the years. Sally and me was married in a proper church.”
“Have you been baptized, sir?”
“In a little crick back in Missouri, yes, sir, I was.”
“Ah, wonderful! Perhaps you and your wife will attend services just as soon as I get my church completed?”
“I knew a lay preacher back in Missouri preached on a stump, Preacher Morrow. Look around you, sir. You ever in all your life seen a more beautiful cathedral? Look at them mountains yonder. Got snow on ’em year-round. See them flowers scattered around, those blue and purple ones? Those are columbines. Some folks call them Dove Flowers. See the trees? Pine and fir and aspen and spruce and red cedar. What’s wrong with preaching right in the middle of what God created?”
“You’re right, of course, sir. I’m humbled. You’re a strange man, Mister Jensen. And I don’t mean that in any ugly way.”
“I didn’t take it in such a way. I know what you mean. The West is a melting pot of people, Preacher. Right there in that town of Fontana, there’s a man named Louis Longmont. He’s got degrees from places over in Europe, I think. He owns ranches, pieces of railroads, and lots of other businesses. But he follows the boom towns as a gambler. He’s been decorated by kings and queens. But he’s a gambler, and a gunfighter. My wife lives in a cabin up in the mountains. But she’s worth as much money as Tilden Franklin, probably more. She’s got two or three degrees from fancy colleges back East, and she’s traveled in Europe and other places. Yet she married me.
“I know scouts for the Army who used to be college professors. I know cowboys who work for thirty and found who can stand and quote William Shakespeare for hours. And them that listen, most of them, can’t even read or write. I know Negroes who fought for the North and white men who wore the Gray who now work side by side and who would die for each other. Believe it.”
“And you, Smoke?” Hunt asked. “What about you?”
“What about me? I raise cattle and horses and farm. I mind my own business, if people will let me. And I’ll harm no man who isn’t set on hurting me or mine. We need people like you folks out here. We need some stability. Me and Sally are gonna have kids one day, and I’d like for them to grow up around folks like you.” He cut his eyes to Ed Jackson. “Most of you, that is.” The store-owner caught the verbal cut broadside and flushed. “But for a while yet, it’s gonna be rough and rowdy out here.” Smoke pointed. “Ya’ll see that hill yonder? That’s Boot Hill. The graveyard. See that fancy black wagon with them people walking along behind it, going up that hill? That wagon is totin’ a gunhawk name of Tay. He braced me last night in Louis’s place. He was a mite slow.”
“You killed yet
“I’ve killed about a hundred men,” Smoke said. “Not counting Indians. I killed twenty, I think, one day up on the Uncompahgre. That was back in ’74, I think. A year later I put lead into another twenty or so over in Idaho, town name of Bury. Bury don’t exist no more. I burned it down.*
“People, listen to me. Don’t leave this area. We got to have some people like you to put down roots, to stay when the gold plays out. And it will, a lot sooner than most folks realize. And,” Smoke said with a sigh, “we’re gonna need a doctor and nurse and preacher around here…the preacher for them that the doc can’t patch up.”
The newcomers were looking at Smoke, a mixture of emotions in their eyes. They all wanted for him to speak again.
“Now I’m heading into town, people,” Smoke said. “And I’m not going in looking for trouble. But I assure you all, it will come to me. If you doubt that, come with me for an hour. Put aside your axes and saws and ride in with me. See for yourself.”
“I’ll go with you,” Preacher Morrow said. “Just let me bathe in the creek first.”
